#TBT: The 12 Campiest Songs Ever Recorded

Dark purple camp, from the golden age of homosexuality. All right, millennials — learn this!

BY Christopher Harrity

April 24 2014 7:00 AM ET

Yma Sumac: "Tumpa"(or anything she recorded), 1954Space goddess from the Planet Mary, Yma Sumac is still uncategorizable. But to see her recordings being lip-synched to by a tattered Latina drag queen at a low-rent bar is to know God.

Johnny Mathis: "Misty," 1959Lady Miss Mathis held out for a few centuries before he finally dropped the giant hairpin. His voice defined a smoother-than-glass era of echo chambers and backup choruses. How did anyone not know?

Lesley Gore: "You Don't Own Me," 1963Her proto-feminist pop song should have been a clue about where her real love life was headed. Lesley is one of our own, and this is a near-perfect musical moment.